Here is a tale of two once-great cities. They lost their steel mills and auto plants. The factories went quiet. The populations dwindled. In spite of that, they never lost their football teams, which became sources of ragged pride amid snowy desolations. Now, these survivors stand at the edge of something spectacular.
A Super Bowl between the Buffalo Bills and the Detroit Lions, the best teams in the AFC and NFC, respectively, would be more than a championship game. If the current odds hold, with Detroit heavily favored to win the NFC and Buffalo about as likely as the Kansas City Chiefs to take the AFC, it would be sweet vindication for two places that America long ago wrote off as finished. Buffalo kept its Bills despite noise about them moving elsewhere. Detroit has kept supporting its loveable-loser Lions.
They’re Canada‘s teams too, these hard-luck franchises. Ontario adopted them like strays, giving them a second home in a second-place country. The Bills occasionally play games in Toronto. The Lions beam into nearby Windsor living rooms every Sunday. It feels right somehow — teams from America’s forgotten cities becoming heroes in a nation that’s always lived in someone else’s shadow.
Even Buffalo’s greatest coach fits the pattern. Marv Levy won Grey Cups in Montreal long before he lost four straight Super Bowls with the Bills. He conquered Canada but couldn’t quite reach the summit in America. It was perfect for Buffalo — excellence that stopped just short of ultimate glory.
The Lions play in domed Ford Field now, not the old outdoor Tiger Stadium where Bobby Layne threw long bombs and Buddy Parker called plays in the 1950s glory days. Head coach Dan Campbell stalks the sidelines like a caged animal. A hulking Texan, he fits right in with the Motor City crowd — he’s tough, direct, and abhors fancy talk. He coaches like the hard-nosed tight end he was and still looks like he could be. The players see themselves in him. The city does too. When he speaks about grit and toughness, it’s not an act. The Lions mirror their coach — relentless, physical, and proud to be considered unfashionable by the rest of the league. He’s built something extraordinary in Detroit — a team that wins without superstars. Even with defensive anchor Aidan Hutchinson lost to injury, the Lions hadn’t allowed a touchdown in 10 quarters at this writing. They’re 10-1 and finally worthy of the faithful who kept showing up, shivering through decades of defeat.
Up in Buffalo, Josh Allen represents a different kind of toughness. He’s the farm kid from tiny Firebaugh, California, who played college ball at Wyoming because no big school wanted him. Now, he’s rewritten what’s possible for a quarterback. Allen has more rushing touchdowns than Hall of Famer O.J. Simpson ever scored for Buffalo. He fires lasers 60 yards downfield or bulls through tacklers like a fullback. Even accounting for the two-way greatness of Randall Cunningham, Michael Vick, and Lamar Jackson, there’s never been anyone quite like him.
Bills coach Sean McDermott is Allen’s opposite: quiet, cerebral, analytical. He’s a natural heir to Levy, the Harvard-educated whiz kid who parlayed Canadian success into American near-misses. McDermott doesn’t give speeches about smashing faces. He out-thinks people. His offense might not have much going for it besides Allen’s wizardry, but his defense had allowed just 19.5 points per game at this writing. The Bills are 9-2 because they’re doing more with less than they ever have before. Three decades ago, they had future Hall of Famers at nearly every position and couldn’t buy a Super Bowl win. This year, they have Allen and a bunch of willing role players, and that might be enough.
The Lions have Rams castoff Jared Goff, as traditional a dropback passer as you’ll find in the league, throwing long bombs, and running backs David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs combining for more than 1,500 yards on the ground. Amon-Ra St. Brown catches everything near him. But, as demonstrated by the success of the defense even after a season-ending injury to Hutchinson, their star-in-the-making defensive end, no single player defines them. It’s not like it was back when all-time greats Barry Sanders and Calvin Johnson willed their run-of-the-mill supporting casts into the playoffs but couldn’t take them any farther. Sanders and Johnson retired because they saw no point in further imperiling their health for dead-end clubs. But the 2024 Lions were built for the long haul. These Lions win as a unit, as a city, as believers in something bigger than individual glory.
Buffalo rides Allen’s remarkable talents, but they’re not just his team either. McDermott has built a complete roster, balancing Allen’s improvisational brilliance with disciplined defense and careful game planning. Former Georgia star James Cook is a good running back, much of the time, and tight ends Dalton Kincaid and Dawson Knox are big targets for Allen. Pass rushers A.J. Epenesa, Greg Rousseau, and past-his-prime future Hall of Famer Von Miller can get to the quarterback. Safety Damar Hamlin, back from a bizarre cardiac event that nearly led to his death on the field, heads up an opportunistic secondary. They’ve already beaten the mighty Chiefs in one of the best games of the year and clearly fear no one.
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The Super Bowl has never seen anything quite like this hypothetical matchup. Two proud cities that America counted out. Two teams that stayed loyal to their people through the hard and lean years. Two different paths back to excellence — Detroit’s collective dominance, and Buffalo’s combination of genius and know-your-role grit. They’ve lost a lot over the years, these two Rust Belt cities. But they never lost hope in their teams. They may never be what they were in their industrial prime. But for three hours every Sunday, none of that matters.
The old dreams live again. Now hope looks a lot like reality. The football teams are alive and magnificent. Buffalo and Detroit still dream their biggest dreams, and the odds are in their favor. A Super Bowl between them would be a contest about much more than just football.
Oliver Bateman is a journalist, historian, and co-host of the What’s Left? podcast. Visit his website: www.oliverbateman.com.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
